gonzosflyingdog

Garth and I woke up to solid gray weather again yesterday. Rain fell thick thru mist, waves splashed, wind blew. The portholes fogged. Condensation dripped from cabin ceiling, hatch doors and walls. Everything was damp and cold. Garth spent most of the day cleaning the boat’s interior. I lounged in bed reading “How to Sail Around the World.” We boiled Ramen and sausage for dinner in our shallow frying pan and drank the last of our fresh water. Monday’s events were so stressful and all-consuming that we’d failed to notice our water supply was running low, so we went to bed thirsty as hell.

The wind blows harder today, screams louder. A thicker fog blurs passing boats, and the Annapolis skyline has disappeared. Rain shoots in sideways, hits like bullets. Condensation forms puddles on floors and squishes like swamp in bench cushions. Now that the boat is clean, there’s nothing for Garth to do. Now that I’ve decided the author of “How to Sail Around the World” is pretentious rather than pragmatic, there’s nothing for me to do either.

Also, there’s nothing to eat. Our only food is Ramen. We have no water for drinking, much less cooking. We can’t motor to town and dock in order to get food and water and escape the cabin. We don’t have the money. We can’t take the dinghy to town either, because we haven’t bought rain gear. Besides, the dinghy’s not inflated. We have only a bike pump and haven’t figured out how to adapt it for use on the dinghy. We’re damp, cold, hungry, thirsty, bored and stuck. And worst of all, we feel like we’re wasting time. Garth and I hate nothing more than wasting time. This bleakness will last thru tonite and into tomorrow, I’m sure. It always lasts three days.

We get fully dressed and debate braving the storm rather than accumulating three days worth of tedious waiting. One minute, Garth is saying he can’t stay in the cabin another second. He has to get out. We may as well do it now. The next, he’s saying the rain is too hard. We’ll be walking around town soaked and freezing. Also, it will destroy the laptops. Garth won’t go without the laptops. He uses the internet to accomplish almost everything he does; update his website, get directions, read news and communicate with the outside world. Going to town without the laptops would be pointless. Every option includes insurmountable drawbacks. He can’t decide. He gets frustrated, gets angry, curses and grumbles about how he hates this fuckin’ boat and the road was never this bad. He goes back to bed. I sit up and study the “Annapolis book of Seamanship,” learn to interpret the meanings of different types of buoys.

Well, darling, if you insist upon waiting for the perfect set of circumstances before doing anything, you’ll be sleeping your entire life away. You don’t want to get wet, but you don’t want to buy rain gear. We can always get more money. We worked while living in tents on the beach. We worked while living in an abandoned church. We can certainly work while living on a boat. It might be difficult, but when you choose an alternative lifestyle, difficulty comes with the territory. Waiting around for ‘easy’ means waiting around forever.

I don’t know how much more of this ferociously vocal anger and discontent I can take. Not only am I in the same irksome straights as you; I get to bottle up my feelings and try to deal with it all while trying to remain positive and be supportive. If I get angry too, there will be enough negativity in this boat to cause the universe to combust. I am getting exhausted. I will lose my mind, pack my shit, paddle the dinghy ashore and hop a freight train, before enduring much more of this. I am not a sponge. I’m not here to soak up your negativity. I’m more like a glass; I eventually get full and the negativity begins to spill back out again.

Finished with the chapter on buoy interpretation, I close my book. My throat scratches like sandpaper. I’m shriveled inside from thirst. I get out some bowls and stick them on deck to collect rainwater. To distract myself from water cravings, I get out my guitar and a notebook and begin drawing up chord fingering charts. Garth wants to learn to play, but wants charts. This project keeps me busy for an hour. Opening the hatch, letting in rain and wind, I see one bowl is half full. I bring it in, drink some and give some to Garth. He thanks me and drifts back to dreamland. I sit and play songs.

On the road if you want to go inside to escape the weather, you have four options. 1: Visit a friend of family member, operate according to their rules and their schedule, leave when they tell you too. 2: Be a guest in the home of a stranger you’ve met while traveling, operate according to their rules and their schedule, go out of your way to be polite, leave when they tell you too. 3: Go inside a store or café and buy something in exchange or permission to stay, operate according to company rules, get kicked out after a few hours or less. 4: Hide- take shelter in some dirty, uncomfortable place you’re not necessarily supposed to be, stay quiet and still and worry about being discovered and removed by the police.

I love Gonzo. He is my home. I own him. I don’t have to pay money to be here, and I’m comfortable, dry and somewhat warm. I can stay as long as I want without being kicked out by police or civilians. I operate according to only my own rules. Better yet, Gonzo is a vehicle. He can take me anywhere in the world running on free wind power, and I won’t have to worry about finding a new home or hiding place when I get there.

Garth gets out of bed around 3pm. We decide to boil Ramen and sausage using river/bay water. He lites the Coleman stove, fills the shallow frying pan (our only pan) full of water and sets it on the flame. The waves, which have been relatively calm all day, begin to roll. Gonzo seesaws. Water sloshes up to the edges of the pan.

“God damnit!” Garth growls. “The minute we decide to cook! If that keeps up, I’m not doing this.”

I perch myself on the counter top beside the stove and hold the pan two inches above the grill so it won’t tip when the boat tips. I keep this position for twenty minutes.

“I’m glad you’re patient,” Garth says, sticking his fork in the finished meal. “I would never have done that.”

“I know,” I say.

“That’s why you did it,” he says with a funny half smile. “I would’ve gone hungry for three days before doing that.”

My patience is a not just a virtue; it’s an incredible flaw. I tolerate everything. People throw all sorts of shit my way and all I do is say, “I understand,” and move on. I believe that anger and grudges are a waste of time and energy. Eventually, it builds up and I become tired. Then, I have some kind of nonsensical outburst and the person at whom it is directed just cannot understand where it’s coming from because I was just fine up until the moment of explosion. This tends to ruin things between me and other people.

After dinner, Garth opens the hatch, sets the pan outside to soak in rainwater, takes a look around.

“We’re definitely drifting,” he says. “The anchor slipped.”

I stick my head out. We’ve drifted away from the Navy mooring field toward the channel. We’re about to obstruct boat traffic in the channel. There’s no time to put on jackets and gloves, no time for Garth to get dressed. We run up on deck and haul in the anchor together in the driving wind and rain. I start the engine.

“We have to catch a mooring!” Garth yells over the wind. “They don’t drift!”

I take the wheel and he goes up to the bow with a rope. I circle and drift around moorings. Garth tries to lasso them. Within minutes, his hands and sandaled feet freeze beyond use, his hair drips, and his thin flannel pajamas soak thru and suction onto his bones.

There’s no hope for a mooring. The anchor doesn’t hold. We must return to city dock and pay fifty dollars for a slip. Our lack of options, lack of funds and the relentlessly vicious weather send Garth into a ferocious rage. He goes below, tries to warm his hands while donning boots and dry clothes. I drive us thru the channel toward town. His curses and screams louder than the wind, waves and roaring engine combined.

At the dock, he reemerges to aid in tying up. We grab the laptops, board up the hatch and run immediately for the warmth of a café. Arriving around 4:30pm, we stay five hours catching up on writing. Garth takes a bus to Sam’s Club while I use his laptop to access the internet. He returns with two full suits of rain gear, a set of used camping pots, and a battery charger. While he’s away, a fellow at the nest table introduces himself. His name is James. He’s captain of a ship named Emannuelle Drifting. He tells me all about his trips to Cuba, both accidental and intentional, and gives me some advice on how to get
some paid columns and blogging gigs.
Around 9:30pm, we return to the boat. Gonzo is a filthy mess. Garbage sacks and dirty dishes litter the helm and stuff is strewn all over the inside of the cabin. Messes drive both of us insane. Garth wants to do the dishes, but doesn’t want to go out into the darkness and cold rain to use the water spout on the dock. We can’t do it during the day because it’s technically against the rules to do your dishes on the dock. Complexity and difficulty once again show their faces in a situation that would be simple in a civilized lifestyle. This angers Garth once again.

I figure it’s now or not at all, jump outside and grab some dishes, getting ready to wash them so he won’t have to.

“What are you doing?” he asks, irritated. “Don’t feel like you have to do things for me like that. I’ll do it. Just come back inside and do whatever you want to do.”

I trade him places. He yells and swears outside while I organize things inside. As I’m putting thing away, it occurs to me that I’m consciously trying to put things in places where they won’t get wet or bang around, where they won’t irritate Garth.

Finished with the dishes, he comes back into the cabin and continues to clean, still yelling and swearing. His rage reaches heights which drive me to curl into the fetal position with my hands over my ears. It’s not directed at me, I just can’t listen to it anymore. My brain is melting.

Finished cleaning, Garth lite a cigarette and sits down next to me, runs fingers thru my hair. “What are you doing?” he asks gently. No matter how mad everything else makes him, he’s always gentle with me.

“I’m hiding,” I say.

He continues to smoke and stroke my hair. Once he’s calmed down slightly I sit up and look at him and ask, “What do you think?”

“We’ve got our boat… We’ve got our guitar…” he muses. “I think we can find a way to make this work… I’d rather sink the boat than sell it.” He looks closely at my nerve-clenched face. “What do you think?”

“It’s hard to explain,” I say.

“Try.”

“I don’t want you to feel like you’re not allowed to get frustrated or angry… It’s reasonable to get angry at times. But lately, everything you look at, every sound you hear, everything that exists sends you into a ferocious rage. You’re always angry. I spend every second nervous, worrying about whether something is going to bother you. I’m dealing with all the problems you’re dealing with, but I can’t get angry. If both of us get angry like that, there would be nothing but anger on a constant basis. So I have to hold in my frustration and anger while absorbing all of yours and trying my best to make things easier for you. I’m constantly soaking up negativity. There’s no way to relieve the pressure, no one on my side. I feel like you’re not even here with me anymore. It hurts.”

Garth puts his arms all the way around me, holds me close to him. He doesn’t object, doesn’t defend himself. Instead, he says, “You’re the most important thing. I could lose the boat and the guitar, but I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want you to feel alone. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know you don’t,” I say. “I just don’t think you realized the extent of your anger or how constant it was. We need to just deal with our problems. We need to find solutions instead of wasting energy getting mad all the time. I’ve always lived differently, and it’s always made simple things more difficult and complex.  But I choose my situation, so I have to work thru it. I like the boat and the guitar. We just have to find a way to make this good.”

It’s like a bubble has burst. He let’s go of his anger and frustration. He begins to relax. He is here with me again. He is on my side.

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